14 November 2008

Chardonnay. Or was it Chinon? Whatever the case, it was most certainly Lagavulin. After his shift Danny'dpour'm Jack and Gingers until he started to like the taste. He was searching for his drink then. Had his last gin and tonic on a couch in the back of a club in Australia. Had a sprout salad for dinner outside that night alone. Just me, him, Jim (Carrol), Peter, Bjorn and John at the end of the bar on Rivington. Across the street from Steit’s. People gawking at antiquated matzo machinery like polar bears in a tank at the Central Park Zoo. He stood there with a racetrack for a mind through a monochrome winter. Then in a famous Brooklyn pizzeria he stood next to a white shirt that could've put him away for a very long time. 20-30 years in the left pocket of his denim jacket. Even in the summer he wore that thing. Kept the cash in the other pocket. Met guys in small bathroom stalls of local bars with his back against the door. Selling snow to Eskimos. But somewhere along the way the graffiti in the bathroom stalls change. I can't put my finger on exactly where but its sometime between when the Mason-Dixon Line ends and Madison Avenue begins. It goes from sketchy homosexual trucker bartering to “Think Yiddish. Dress British!!!!” scrawled in a Cross 772 Townsend ball-point. And that's when it all got weird.